Notes from the Fall Line

Heavy Lifting-the Peril of Writing Forums

For several years I was a member of one of the best writing forums I’ve ever seen on the Internet. It was large enough to create synergy, but small enough to be personal and friendly. I became a moderator of the forum, and then an administrator.

The experience just about ruined my writing.

When I first joined, the forum was relatively new. The excitement was still there and the membership actively reviewed critiqued work as well as posted their work for review. The forum had a 1 to 5 rating for work, so people would know what kind of critique the writer was looking for. Someone who wanted a “1” review was looking for nothing more than encouragement to keep working on their story, and maybe one or two hints on something to review. Someone who asked for a ‘5’ review wanted a heavy-duty, give-and-take critique, no holds barred! These were people serious about getting their short story, novel, poem or essay published.

It worked well—for a time.

During my first year with the forum, I received a lot of good help and encouragement for one or two stories I was writing. Some of the members had real talent in critiquing, which is harder than you think. I revised some of the chapters with their suggestions in mind. When I disagreed with the suggestions, it led to good discussion.

Heavy Lifting

Heavy lifting, that was the problem. After the bloom had worn off, more and more of the reviewing fell to fewer and fewer people. Those people were (mostly) called Moderators and Administrators. The membership continued to grow, but more people posted simply to be seen and get a quick pat on the back. They would “review” a piece that someone had requested a ‘4’ or ‘5’ level review with “hey, looks good to me!” That was what they called paying back to the forum.

When I was asked to moderate two sub-forums, I felt more responsibility to review and encourage others. Combined with the responsibilities of moderating, my own writing time suffered. I vowed that I would take the time to write from some other activity in my life. Still—heavy lifting. There were a few of us doing the lifting, and a lot of people getting free rides.

The Life and Death of Forums

The forum was no longer fresh and new. Both content and reviews weren’t up to scratch. Membership began to lose interest, moving on to other things. The forum lost that synergy that made it spark. In an effort to bring some life back to the forum, the lead administrator began writing more content for the General forum—quick bites of information on entertaining subjects. The moderators, those who were still around on an occasional basis, were encouraged to join in. Some did, but any time they spent writing for the board was time they took away from their own work.

After a few months, I was asked to join the administrative team. It would be a chance to help oversee changes in the forum and direct its future. Since I wanted to see the board return to some of the spark it had when it was new, I accepted. Quickly, I found that my role wasn’t so much as a member of a three-administrator team, but to serve as a buffer and sounding board between the board owner and her co-administrator, who locked horns and stomped off in huffs about every other week.

Naturally, in reading the board owner’s two page email complaints about the other administrator, and answering same, I got no substantial writing done.

Forum Meltdown

You knew it was coming, didn’t you? In an effort to revive the forum, the administrators revamped it. We gave it a new look. We culled the membership and invited the best writers, the most active participants, the best reviewers, to join the new club. It required weeks of work to develop the new board. This was going to be a real critique forum!

So, what if you gave a party and no one came? Well, they came, but nothing much happened except what had happened at the first board. The synergy never returned to the revamped writing board. The board owner, who had insisted that with the new board the administration would not spoon-feed the membership with new topics, games and original content, went mad to provide the membership with—you guessed it: original content, games and new topics. For a time, we considered moving the board to another hosting facility. I spent hours testing Invision Power Board, Vbulletin and Pro-boards. The board owner never looked at the test boards I set up.

The board closed a few months later. We couldn’t find a way to reengage the membership, the board owner encountered serious family problems, the second co-administrator did another vanishing act, and the third co-administrator (me) realized that far from helping with her writing, the forum was a weight that wasn’t getting any lighter.
In Retrospect…

…are writing forums a good idea anyway? If you’re writing a long story or a novel, you post chapters at a time for critique. Essentially, you’re asking reviewers to critique a work that isn’t in its final form. You could receive great critiques on chapter three, and write something in chapter eight that means you have to substantially rewrite chapter three. Published authors also warn writers not to talk about their work too much; there’s too much of a chance you’ll lose that excitement you have about a story if you talk about it. Forum reviews might work for short stories, when you post the entire work for review, poems, non-fiction articles, but I’ve become wary about revealing too much of a long piece of work. Sometimes you need encouragement and a pat on the back, but you have to be careful not to lose the spice that makes you want to write that long story or novel in the first place.

I was a member and then an administrator of a very good writing board. I joined when it was on its upswing and I was there when it died. The forum was as good as its membership, and the membership was very good in the first, early, days. In some ways, it was a victim of its own success. The quality of work and reviews drew more people to the forum, but too many of those were only interested in collecting raves on their own work, not participating in the review process. Heavy lifting—that’s what a few of us were left to do. The weight of that heavy lifting exposed other problems in the forum and, eventually, it closed. The experience has left me with this belief:

When you write, you have to be your own best reviewer. There will come a time when you need to get other people to give you an independent critique, but in the beginning—you do your heavy lifting for yourself.

–30–

Note: This entry was inspired by a post on Digital Dame’s Filling Spaces blog, about the helium.com writing forum, and her comment about writing forums that a few people do all the heavy lifting.

11 Responses

The funny thing is, I just posted some of Agatha Christie’s quotes on writing. One of them being about how writers shouldn’t talk about their work before it’s done. Another, that writers are often terrible critiquers.

I agree with both sentiments. Too often critiquers will suggest changes, not because of the story or writing itself, but because it’s not how they would do it.

I’ll check your blog for the Christie quotes. Funny thing is that I’ve been thinking about rereading some of her books. She was good at creating puzzles.

There’s a fine line between being an objective critiquer and one who bases their comments on how they would do something. Also, as you pointed out in your comments about helium.com, how much does the person know who’s reviewing your work? A lot of the helium.com comments I saw weren’t that solid.

What you describe is sooooo typical, and not just on writing forums, but in anything you join in life. Some people are do-ers, others sit back and enjoy the ride.

I think there’s a lot of truth in that advice about not talking too much about a work before it’s written. Once it’s out of my system, whether verbally or in writing, my brain thinks it’s been processed and moves on to other things.

There is also a real danger in posting original content on the Web. Content gets pirated all the time, and shows up on other sites (sploggers). I’m always a little surprised when people put up stories on forums, or in writing groups. Speaking of which, have you ever checked online to see if anyone’s stolen your work?

Hi DD, Sue Grafton warns against talking it all out over at her forum. A local mystery writer brought that up in writing course she taught. I’ve experienced it. You do have to be careful. OTOH, you do need a little encouragement now and then.

Another problem in posting on the Internet is losing your first rights. This forum was set up very well for the internet. First, if you were really serious, there were private forums and membership in those was limited. Of course, there was always a chance…. However, it was more protected that most forums I’ve seen. I’ve never found anything I wrote for the board outside of it and under someone else’s name. Most of it was inside the private forums.

What I did hear about was one writer who had published an ebook finding out that another ebook publisher had snapped her book up and published it. From what I could tell, her publisher never pursued the other publisher to get them to stop. That made me a little wary about ebook publishing.

Hello there, just would like to say that it is a very good piece of writing.

I have been around the internet since 1999 and also joined several writing forums before, and you more or less hit on the head when it comes to writing forums. I joined one on msn it was called the pleasure dome; a home for writers (closed down now) left the fourm (more like disappeared) when I came back to it, it was in a right state. The original owner passed away in 2005, which left ownership of the forum in question, the admin & moderators of the forum were at each others throats (back-stabbing and all).

In general the forum were left to the original admins who were close to the owner, but sadly msn groups were closed down, they did have a sister website were alot of the users that signed up ended up posting there. And alot of them were looking for a quick’pat-on-the-back’ for there workes.

Hi Chrono, yes it’s a sad story when a good forum goes down. I think small and medium-sized forums are most at risk. If the really good writers and reviewers move on, there’s no one to take their place. OTOH, if the forum is huge, it’s impersonal and hard to get a foothold in it.

I think it’s very hard to get a good working forum of people who are good writers, good reviewers, and willing to give and take on the forum.

[quote]
When you write, you have to be your own best reviewer. There will come a time when you need to get other people to give you an independent critique, but in the beginning—you do your heavy lifting for yourself.[/quote]

I fully agree – and this is why I find myself continually revising my own stuff. I will often put something away, then come back to revise with gusto.

As for posting original work on the internet, I am very concerned about that, and the only writing forum I post at is invisible to all but members. So far I have not discovered my work misappropriated by someone else.

At my own website I assert my copyright, but it is impossible to know whether my poems are stolen. I have gotten very nice requests to use some of my poetry – the best was a request by a teacher on a Caribbean island to use my children’s poems in her class. I gladly said yes.

In the end, though, I just want to post my poems and leave them for whoever wants to read them. I don’t lose sleep over copyright, but, then, I am not trying to make a living as a writer.

Hi Kerry, good to see you. Yep, I’ve come to feel that the typical writing forum’s modus operandi of posting chapter by chapter and asking for heavy critiques is a mistake. It’s unfair for the writer, it’s unfair for the reviewer. The reviewer puts too much work into a chapter that may be substantially changed later on; the writer may feel hemmed in to keep the chapter “that way” because of all the work that’s been put into revisions based on the critiques received.

I think it’s nice that a teacher is using your poems in her class. It was good of her to contact you for your permission. As far as photographs go, my feeling is keep them small, keep them about 125-150 dpi. They can’t be blown up very big for printing.

Goodness me, I could have written that piece about my old art gallery, later art gallery, or just about any experience I have had with creativity, organization, and other people. It is the life cycle of a great idea. So sad to see it lose strength and be kept alive by only your herculean efforts while everyone else scoots out the door chirping about how they “are so terribly busy” throws a rolling eye in your direction and then murmurs “you do understand, don’t you?” Gets old. Gets older when they start to criticize you for your hard work not being up to their exacting standards.

Hats off to you. You bear the marks of someone who made it happen, carried the burden of dailiness while keeping the creative spark alive. You were the better man of them all and I hope that your experience will come back to help you. You. You get to do something you dearly wanted to do and your background in this makes it possible.

Best of luck.

P.S. I found this site because I used to live on Reservoir Road in Washington DC. One of my favorite homes.